BAKKEN LAW: Today the USCIS issued a press release projecting it will receive enough H-1B petitions to reach both the “normal” H-1B annual cap and the U.S. Master’s Degree annual cap by April 7, 2014.

The first date USCIS will accept H-1B petitions for both caps is Tuesday, April 1, 2014 and USCIS states that it is “prepared” to use a random lottery to select H-1B petitions for adjudication, though it does not exactly state the parameters of a random lottery; in past years, the USCIS has considered petitions filed in the first 5 days of the annual cap filing period as timely filed for purposes of inclusion in the random lottery. In addition, USCIS is temporarily delaying the premium processing rules due to an expected high number of H-1B petitions being filed with a request for premium processing. Specifically, USCIS will begin premium processing of cap-subject H-1B petitions “no later than April 28, 2014”.

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